


Taxi Cab

by virmillion



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, a better name would have been uber or lyft, also there's a bit where they sing along to a song, and honestly that's the worst paragraph, but its too late now, kay thanksss, retroactively forgive me for that, so just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-08-19 22:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16543520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virmillion/pseuds/virmillion
Summary: virgil needs a ride somewhere, anywhere, so of course, the nearest person with a car obliges





	Taxi Cab

The rain pours down in sheets, soaking me to my core, drenching my socks through the holes of my worn-through tennis shoes. A good twenty feet behind me, a large house seems to pulse with party music, warm light glowing through the shuttered windows and casting a bright yellow through the curtains inside. I turn up the volume in my own headphones, drowning out the house music with the sad sounds of Amber Run. Drown. What a funny word, if you think about it. Traditionally just meaning to die by over-inhalation of water, but it’s come to mean so much more, since English as a language can never just leave well enough alone. Drowning out sound with more sound, drowning in water, drowning in too much work to do, submerging anything in something else. Drown. Drroooowwwwwn. I mumble the word a few times to myself, admiring the way it boomerangs through my mouth, from teeth to lips back to my molars and jaws, then forward to lips and behind my teeth.

The next song comes on, oddly appropriate in its name—“Waves”—only a whisper in comparison to the other one. I lift a hand to turn up the volume, ignoring the immediacy of cold and wet against the black glove encasing my hand. Vaguely, I hear someone yell something in the house, too muffled to be coming from outside. The voice clears and separates into two distinct ones, a boy and a girl, as the door opens with a bang. The pair carries on cursing at each other, until I hear angry footsteps heading away from me in either direction—the telltale clicking of high heels to my right, shuffling sneakers to my left. The door opens again, creaking and obnoxious, carrying the sounds of even more people having a good time. Without me. Not surprising. A sound of shattering glass, and the door closes.

I suppose I should probably figure a way home from here, or at least to a place that isn’t a stupid house full of stupid people who don’t want to stupid talk to stupid me, stupid stupid stupid! On my stupid phone, I pull up the stupid uber app and request a stupid driver to take me to an unspecified stupid destination, pausing to marvel over the word stupid. I remember in elementary school, that was the sort of word to be giggled over on the building wall, watching a game of four square and whispering ‘stupid,’ praying the teachers wouldn’t notice and scold us. Well, not so much scold us as scold them. No one ever really seemed to notice me on the building wall, watching the same four square game as them, repeating the same word as them, but somehow still miles away. Stupid. Stu pid. Stew pit. Pit pit pit pit pit puh-pit puh-pit pit puh-pat puh-pat boom boom clap buh-boom buh-boom clap. I shut my eyes and hold my headphone cups, letting the rain beating down absorb into the song’s bass, nodding my head along with it. My lips stumble over the rap verses every time they come back, not trained enough to know how to keep up with the words as they trip over themselves, alliterating running sprinting bouncing everywhere.

_ Beep, beep _ . I open my eyes, ripped from the trance of the music as a car rolls up. Bright blue, a stark highlight in the night and lit further by the house pulsing behind me. The passenger side window rolls down, and some guy in glasses leans his head across the seat to wave at me.

“Hey buddy, I’m your uber,” he says before letting the window close. I nod, climbing in the backseat while maneuvering myself through the air above it to avoid the water. He didn’t close the window fast enough for the rain. “So where are we goin’?” I hesitate to answer, distracted by both the song change in my headphones and the sweater tied around his neck. Why doesn’t he just put it on if he’s wearing short sleeves anyway? It looks like the makeshift kilts people would wear in third grade, tying sweaters around their waists and pretending they thought it looked lame. If they really didn’t like the aesthetic, why didn’t they just wear them like normal?   
“I kind of need a destination before I take off, pal,” the driver prods, turning around to look at me for a second. I wonder what he sees first. My slouched posture to disguise my height, while also avoiding a collision between my head and the ceiling? The bags under my eyes from staying up too late listening to music? Maybe he notices my sopping hoodie and hat, or my refusal to take them off now that I’m somewhere dry. If he can see really well in the dark, maybe he’ll see the tiredness behind my face, the exhaustion with daily tasks and relationships and people and thoughts and fears and—

Wait, he asked me a question. I’m supposed to answer those, that’s a rule of being social. Or if not a rule, at least a generally required etiquette. I pull my wallet from the pocket of my hoodie and peer inside at all the money I’ve saved specially for tonight, for that party, for that party’s host. It’s not a small sum. “Anywhere. Just drive.”

The driver clicks his teeth with a wink and a head tilt, pressing his foot on the gas and pulling away from the curb and the party and the noise and the lights and the person and everything.  _ Just get me out of here _ .

For a few treasured moments, the car bounces over potholes in silence, the only sound coming from my headphones and the car radio. Headphones, headphones, sound, I’m supposed to be doing something with these, I know it. Etiquette, something, something, rules, something, my mom, something, take those off, and I remember, pulling the headphones down to hang around my neck, the cat ears on top gently prodding into the back of the seat. As I switch off my music, descending further into the quiet, the driver cuts in over the soft sounds of Ed Sheeran on the radio.

“So I know most people typically like to sit in silence on these things unless they’re drunk, but you just pulled down your headphones and aren’t wobbling, so I’m guessing you’re sober,” the driver says, “and I’m rather lonely tonight so I’d prefer to have more noise in this car than someone singing about perfection.” I press my lips together, tempted to pull my headphones back up and drown out his conversation. Drown, drown, drown, the word returns. 

“Anyhoodle, my name’s Patton,” the driver continues. Or Patton continues, I guess. Would it really be guess? It’s not a guess if he told me as much. Maybe it’s a guess because I don’t know if that’s really his name. I mean, if he uses words like ‘anyhoodle,’ how reliable can he really be? What kind of name is Patton, anyway? Pat on? Pat on the back? An overly enthusiastic dad looking to encourage his son with a back pat after a sporting game? “What’s yours?”

What’s my what? My sporting game? My dad’s enthusiasm? Of its own volition, my mouth replies, “Angel,” somehow understanding the question before my mind does. Not entirely, though. Angel isn’t my name, why did I even say that? Not like I can correct it now, that’s the polar opposite end of the alphabet from my actual answer. It’s not even the right number of letters. It’s got the right number of vowels, though, and the last letter matches. Convenient, perhaps, but wrong? Absolutely. Maybe I could correct myself if I’m quick enough, but no, the driver, Patton, he’s saying more.

“Nice to meet you, Angel. Want to tell me anything about where you’re coming from tonight?” This is it, I could redeem it, I could say my real name, demand he stop the car, apologize, walk back to the party, pretend this whole thing never happened. “It doesn’t even have to be true,” Patton says. “Just make up a story to fill the silence, or at least to drown out the radio.” Drown. Why that word? Why drown, why that word, drown drown drrooowwwwn drowning.

He said something, asked for something, a story, make-believe, something imaginary, something not real, something I can supply. A story, a bundle of words, a stream of letters that have no real reason to exist without me stringing them together, string string strung string stirring strrriiiiiiiinging ringing bells string string drowning pull on a striiiiiiiinnnnng.

“A made up story,” I mumble, rubbing a sore spot on my shoulder. “I can do that. Any preference?” Goddamnit, why can’t I say more than four words in a sentence? This bull from someone who took a college level English class their freshman year? Get it together.

“How about tuh tuh tuh,” Patton says, rolling the t back and forth across his tongue, “something involving a hedgehog, a balloon, and a peacock. Any stories like that?”

I’ve had worse prompts, most of them from myself. Maybe out of a desire to please, a shared distaste for the silence, or a sheer need to prove I can, my lips part, and a story spills from my lips, not even passing the barrier of my mind to ensure it makes sense.

“Okay, so there’s this hedgehog, right? And he’s got this crush on this really pretty peacock, we’re talking gorgeous and stunning, but the peacock doesn’t know the hedgehog exists. They just go about their day, showing off their feathers and being great without even knowing it, but the hedgehog knows, and the hedgehog has this plan. See, it’s the peacock’s birthday, okay? And maybe they’re gonna have this party or something, I don’t know, but then they worry that they’re taking too much attention, so they cancel it, so no one has to go through the trouble of showing up to the party. And then there’s like, an internet crash or something, so the original invitation doesn’t go out for some reason, but the hedgehog doesn’t really use the internet, so he gets the invite on paper in the mail from the peacock, and he’s like, ‘this is my chance!’ So he drops by the party store and gets a balloon and asks that it’s put in a box because, y’know, spiny things that could pop the balloon, quills or whatever, and off he sets for the peacock’s party, but the peacock isn’t at the address. And so the hedgehog is like, ‘aw shoot, I know why they’re not here! It was a fake invitation, and everyone is probably laughing at me or something from behind some bushes! Ha ha, look at hedgehog, he can’t even tell when we’re making fun of him, what a loser!’ So he opens the box up and away from him, letting one of his quills poke it so it deflates slowly, in a way that he knows that somehow it won’t get to the ocean and choke a turtle because it will deflate too early, and he watches the balloon drift away. At this other fountain in the middle of town, the peacock is just chilling out, watching the clouds go by, when the deflating balloon lands on their head, so they peel it off and it’s a peacock birthday balloon! And they’re all excited and see their friend the hedgehog walking by looking all sad, so they run over to show him in excitement, their rainbow feathers all bouncy from their happiness, and the hedgehog smiles, not telling the peacock that the balloon was actually from him because he’s certain that the peacock wouldn’t be as excited if they knew it was from him. The end.” I blink, recentering myself for a second, realizing how many words I just spouted to a random stranger. Not a stranger, Patton, but still. Stranger. Strayyyyngerrrr. Stray stray cats stray dogs stray stray strayyyyy stray away stay away hey stray stay stray bay day ssstraaayyy.

“That wasn’t a very happy ending at all!” Patton exclaims, again shaking me from my head. “Why didn’t he tell them it was his! They could have lived happily ever after with the balloon and opened a flower shop and at least been friends forever if not gotten together!”

“I guess you could tell that story, if you wanted,” I offer with a shrug. I’m admittedly not the best at writing happy ending. A bit of a flaw, given how often people criticized my works in school for exactly that reason.

“I’m no good at telling stories, but I really liked yours,” Patton answers, rolling the car to a stop as a light in front of us turns yellow. I watch out the window as the rain pours ever heavier, some of the droplets racing to be the first one to reach the door. Dripping down, washing away the dirt on the window, cleaning what wasn’t tainted to begin with. “Speaking of like, I love that hat you’ve got on.” I reach up to feel the still-soaking beanie on my head, a little crown going around the outside. “Isn’t that the one Jughead kid from those Archie comics?” Simply put, I don’t have the heart to tell him that it’s actually more from the overly dramatic Riverdale remake, so I just nod to placate him instead. Is it too personal to tell the guy I just met that a lot of my friends call me Jughead, too, since I never take the hat off?

“I guess since I just made you talk so much, maybe it’s my turn to share,” Patton admits, fidgeting with the radio dial. “Are you sure you’ve got nowhere you need to be going tonight?”

“I’m sure,” I affirm, thinking back to the house of too many brights lights, too many people, too much sound. Sound. Ssssoowwwwwwwnd. I wonder who made up the word sound, with that little ‘ow’ in the middle. Was sound too much for them, too? Did they wear a hat to help block out some sound? Ow-t, S-ow-nd, ow ow ow, pain and suffering from something everyone else can tolerate perfectly fine? A word of soft noises, small vowels and close consonants, save for the one ‘s’ at the beginning, clipped and harsh and loud. Loud out sound vowel ow ow ow ow.

“In that case, we’re stopping at a coffee house. Don’t worry, I won’t run this against your costs,” Patton decides, jerking the wheel to get in the left turn lane. My heart leaps into my throat, immediate terror at the thought of the car careening off of the road, spinning over a chunk of winter ice, made slick by the rain, a flipping car over road barriers setting grass ablaze with yelling and sirens and crying and only thoughts of hedgehogs and peacocks and balloons left to linger behind with no words to bring those thoughts to life only sounds and drowning drown ow ow too damn loud too damn fast and too much and spinning flipping tumbling whipping—

“Hey, Angel, you okay?” Patton asks, twisting around in the driver's seat as cars whiz by on the left, no openings to turn in sight. I flash him a thumbs up, shaking my head a little bit to force the image of a smashed car out of my mind. What seems like eons later, as the car fills with tension and the sound of rain thumping the roof and Kesha singing about prayers, an opening finally reveals itself, allowing Patton to pull the car into a drive through at some coffee place, where he orders himself some long and complicated drink before looking back to ask what I want.

“Oh, no, that’s okay, I don’t really need—”

“I insist.” Judging by the look in his eyes, I’m pretty sure this is a non-negotiable request on Patton’s end.

“Just a black coffee.” Patton repeats the order to the little black box, not seeming to mind how wet his hair is getting from the rain slanting into the car. He pulls forward, paying at the window and tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel to the music while he waits for some underpaid barista to bring our drinks out. With the lights shining down from the building’s roof, I can see a slight tint of purple to Patton’s hair, while the sides are still brown. Funny, my hair is done almost the same way, just with longer bangs. Honestly, so many people downplay the pros of bangs, and how well they work at blocking out others when you want to be alone. Especially when those others don’t understand what a raised middle finger and loud headphones mean.

“Here you go, Angel,” Patton says, passing back a large cup with steam drifting from the opening on top. I take a large swig, relishing the feeling as my throat burns in protest, the heat passing all the way down, so hot it’s almost cold, but still bitter enough to sting. Bitter enough to remind me I can still feel something.

“So anyway, I said it was my turn to tell a story, right?” Patton maneuvers the car through an overcrowded parking lot and onto a back road, considerably less traffic-heavy than the one we took to get in. “I’ll be honest, I’m not great at imagination, so I guess I’ll just tell you about my day, sound good? I mean, if you don’t really want to talk anymore, that’s fine, but I can’t stand sitting in silence, so if I’m bothering you too much, feel free to listen to your headphones. Those are really cool, by the way. I love the cat ears, and how the ears and cups both glow.”

“Thanks,” I reply, leaving the headphones around my neck to admire the color flashing from them. “The ears are actually speakers.”

“Shut up, that is so cool!” Patton exclaims, actually slamming the breaks to whip around and look at the headphones again. The relief I feel that we aren’t on a main road is indescribable. “Show me!” I smile a little, pressing a button to switch the output from the ear cups to the cat ear speakers, letting a song about battle scars play from them. “That is so much better than the radio, and I am absolutely on board with having your speakers as the music for the rest of the ride if you don’t mind.” When I don’t turn the volume back off or make a rude comment about it or something, Patton smiles bigger before pressing on the gas again.

“Anyhoodle, so my day. So I woke up bright and early this morning to make breakfast for my partner, Logan, who is just  _ fantastic _ , let me tell you. He’s got these glasses like mine that he refuses to get resized, so they’re always falling down his nose, and this one tie he wears all the time that’s really nice that he’s always adjusting, so I got him this present that’s like chapstick but you rub it on your nose so your glasses don’t fall down! Cute, right?”

“Cute,” I agree, half listening as I toy with the word. Cute. Half of those letters don’t even belong there like that. Cute. Kyoot. Seventy five percent of them, even! A single direction word, too, from the back of my mouth to my lips. Direction, like a vector. Vector the villain, because he has both direction and magnitude. Vector. Vvvectorrr, with di-rection, and mmmag-nitude! Vector isn’t cute, but vectors as objects can be kyoot, or used to create something kyoot cute boot noot doot snoot. Why do ‘oot’ words get to be cute things? What about other sounds? Like lamp, or elbow, why don’t those words get to mean cute? Who decided that? Maybe words like bounce and blanket feel left out, underappreciated.

Patton hasn’t stopped rambling, maybe not even noticing my derailed train of thought, as he blathers on, “I made him toast this morning with coffee, and he didn’t seem too impressed, but then I brought out the Crofter’s jelly for him to spread on his food, and you would have thought I’d given him the remains of the Library of Alexandria! He talks about that a lot too, but don’t worry, I love hearing anything he has to say. He had this big research deal he was supposed to finish tonight and said I had to be somewhere that wasn’t near him for tonight, but that’s okay because he’s just really blunt, so I got on uber so I could talk to someone else!” I give a nod to confirm that I’m still listening, at least for the most part. Still most listening. Why doesn’t ‘st’ get to make a sound in listening? Why is the ‘t’ silenced there, but not in the other two? Maybe it’s because listening stays centered, it only moves once, from the middle of my mouth to the back for the quiet ‘g,’ but even that isn’t true—I could fade out on the second ‘n,’ and it would still be understood what word I was saying.

“Do you have anyone special you might see tonight?” Patton asks, evidently done gushing about Logan. Frankly, I could listen to it the whole car ride. I’ve never seen anyone so enthusiastic about something as Patton is about this guy. They must really care for each other. Gosh, I hope they do. One source of shining light in this dreary rain is all I’m asking for. “I know you said you don’t have anywhere to be tonight, but I don’t want to send you to an empty house alone or anything. At the very least, maybe you could come hang out with Logan and me?” Before I can politely decline, Patton rescinds the offer. “You know what, that’s a bad idea. I’m just some uber driver, that’s probably really suspicious, and I’d hate to make you uncomfortable or nervous. Truthfully, I just like to be able to see someone’s face when I talk to them. Would you mind terribly moving to the front, just for my own sense of security? I know that’s not the typical arrangement in this sort of car service, but still.” Rather than answer as he stops the car, I undo my seatbelt and pull the door handle twice, slipping around quickly to the front seat. Despite my speed, I’m still soaking from the three seconds I spent outside, leaving my to wring the hem of my shirt over the floor as I buckle myself in.

“There’s your face!” Patton exclaims, smiling brightly. “I love the hair, by the way.” He indicates my matching mop with a laugh, before sipping lightly at his frozen coffee. I glance to the backseat, where I forgot my own cup of black coffee. Not worth it anyway, it’s already almost empty. I’ll grab it when I get out to throw it away. I wonder when I’ll decide to tell Patton where to take me. I wonder where I’ll tell him to take me.

“Now that that’s settled, you can’t expect me to believe there’s no one expecting you tonight? No family, no dates, no nothing? I saw that party behind you when I picked you up, don’t tell me you wandered to there by coincidence?” I avoid most of Patton’s questions, deciding to share the happier parts of myself with him. Besides, it’s not like I’ll see him again, so what’s the harm in sharing? With any luck, most of my words will get drowned out by the music drifting out of my headphones.

“So there’s this guy,” I begin, already interrupted by Patton’s squeals.

“The peacock?”

“The peacock,” I confirm. “So the peacock—”

“Oh come on, what’s their  _ name _ ?” Patton pleads. For some reason, I suddenly don’t want to tell him that much. I never told him my real name, why would I share this person’s?

“We’ll just call him Russ,” I concede. Just like his name, another empire, only shortened. “So I met Russ in elementary school—we had the same last name, super common, so we were put next to each other on every seating chart. That’s how I met most of my closest friends, actually.” All two of them. “He was one of those cool kids, the ones that stuck to the building’s wall at recess, so I hung out over there, too, trying to look cool with them. Didn’t really work, but I got to watch him from afar more because of it. He was pretty easy on the eyes, but his English skills were shit. I wasn’t very good either, but I studied it like crazy so I could help him with it.” I smile a little at the memory, five year old me frantically reading every wikipedia article and big textbook I could find to extend my vocabulary and grammar skills, just to impress one guy. I’m not surprised he never really liked me, looking back on it now.

“Funny, Logan’s kind of like my own Russ,” Patton admits. “He’s really into anything to do with learning, but he really loves astronomy, so I always try to find more fun facts about it so we have something to bond over. Sometimes, he’ll even come into the kitchen while I’m baking or cooking or something, and talk about all the origins and uses of each of the ingredients. It sounds like utter gibberish to me, but he’s really trying, and I love that about him.”

“That’s really nice, actually,” I say, watching my thumbs chase each other in my lap. “I don’t know that Russ has ever returned my attempts to connect with him, but that’s okay. One time, he said that my shirt looked nice, which was cool, I guess. My mom had just finally ripped my hoodie away from me, so I didn’t have anything to cover up.” Remembering, I pull my sleeves down further to cover my palms, ignoring the slight lingering dampness. “It seemed a little backhanded, like he thought the hoodie was silly, but I didn’t mind. He never really said anything else.”

“Oh, kiddo,” Patton mumbles, glancing sideways at me with pity in his eyes. I hate pity, but I’m just pathetic enough to still crave the comfort without the embarrassment. Just a simple hug, even a little acknowledgement, but not here, not from Patton. “Listen, if you need me to—”

The car swerves suddenly, the front end wrenching to the left, as the wheels skid across the road. Black ice from the rain over the freezing ground. I squeeze my eyes shut and clench my jaw, inhaling sharply as the world spins around me, coffee flying, a yell, air hissing over teeth, a cried name. When everything stops wobbling, finally at a standstill, I hesitantly open my eyes, terrified of what I might see—a flipped car, animals, Patton, no Patton, a partial Patton—but it’s just the windshield, rain still beating down, and and outstretched arm—wait, two arms. Somewhere beyond my consciousness or will, I whipped out my arm to hold Patton against the seat, to try to protect him, which he’d evidently also done, as I look at the hand pressing against my chest. We both pant softly, slowly glancing around us and outside the car. The only damage done is Patton’s spilled coffee—the rest of the road is empty, and we both appear unharmed.

“Are you okay?” I ask, turning to face him. The last thing I need is for him to be hurt, one more problem that I caused, one more thing I can’t fix, oh God this is my fault what do I  _ do _ —

“I’m fine, I promise, but what about you?” Patton pleads, “are you okay? I can’t believe I didn’t see that ice, with all this cold weather and now the rain, I should have been more careful, I’m so sorry—”

“Patton, hey,” I say, trying to calm him down. I press a hand to his chest, lifting it lightly to indicate when to breathe. “We’re good, yeah?”   
“We’re good,” he sighs. “We’re good.” Finally, he looks me in the eyes, and something in his face, the trembling lip, the wobbly eyes, that little bit of snot trying to fall out of his nose, makes something bubble inside me. I open my mouth, about to reassure both him and myself, but the something rises, growing and filling from my stomach past my heart and into my throat and over my tongue and I’m laughing, gut-wrenching laughter, uncontrolled and spilling out and filling the car and I can’t stop and Patton joins me and we’re just two weirdos on an abandoned road in a bright blue car in pouring rain laughing our butts off as some cat headphones sing a song of drops in oceans. Through his laughter, Patton manages to eek out, “maybe we should get going, before someone else shows up.”

“Maybe,” I agree, leaning back into my seat. “Tell me more about Logan. How did you meet?”

“He was arguing with some barista at the coffee house I always went to. He showed up every day, three in the afternoon on the dot, asking for a medium black coffee. I don’t think I know when he started, he was always just a fixture. One day, there’s this new guy working there, and he doesn’t get what Logan means. What kind of nut orders plain black coffee when you can have a bunch of special fixins like caramel and hazelnut and vanilla?” Patton laughs again, smaller this time, wiping a hand across his eyelid. “I guess I should’ve known then, when they called him a nut, right in front of everyone there. To myself, I whispered, ‘a hazelnut?’ but I guess he heard me, because he storms on over after placing his coffee order and slams a hand down. He goes, ‘did you seriously call me a hazelnut,’ and of course I admitted to it. ‘Explain,’ he said, so I did, that it was a dad joke. This guy, something in his eyes wanted to laugh, I swear it, but he just stared at me for a second before heading back to the counter where his plain black coffee was ready, and out the door he went.

“The next day, he’s back in the same outfit at the same time, but I’m ready today. As he passes by my counter table with his plain black coffee, I poke him on the arm and hold out a closed fist. Into this guy’s hand I drop a hazelnut, then return to my fancy iced drink and people watching. He says nothing, just vanishing out the door to wherever he goes, and I do the same thing the next day, and the next, and the next. After maybe a month of me giving him hazelnuts, this guy finally takes a seat across from me at the counter.” Patton smiles as he recalls it, running his thumbnail over his fingers while keeping the other hand on the wheel. I smile back to myself, enjoying Patton’s story as it fills the car, battling with the rain outside. The car radio, silent, informs me that it’s almost midnight already. Hm.

“He sits down and says, total deadpan, ‘why.’ So of course I say ‘because you’re a hazelnut.’ He didn’t seem to love that. ‘My name is Logan,’ he tells me, fixing his glasses to sit higher on his nose. ‘I am not a hazelnut.’ ‘Neither am I,’ I tell him, ‘but here we are, anyway.’ This Logan guy kind of looked at me for a second before leaning back in his chair. I ask the obvious question, ‘why have you never sat down before,’ and he goes, ‘today is my day off, so I decided to do something interesting. Talking to you is more than sufficient.’ Let me tell you, that absolutely sold me on this guy. I gave him the hazelnut, and he was off on his merry way, but for every day after that, he kept sitting down with me. I loved it. We got to talking a little more—he knew a lot of fun facts about everything—until one day  _ he  _ gave  _ me  _ a hazelnut! And this one had a piece of paper taped to it with a phone number, so of course I texted it, expecting it to be his number, right? But no, it was to this free subscription number that sends out a random fun fact every day! Adorable.” I grin, already pulling out my phone to enter the number as Patton recites it from memory. “One thing led to another, I finally got his actual number, and here we are now, happily ever after.”

“That sounds awesome,” I admit. “I wish I could talk to Russ that much, but I don’t think he knows I exist. Your story sounds perfect.”

“Not perfect,” Patton sighs.

“A lot better than mine.”

We wallow in self pity like that for a while, letting the drumming of the rain take over again. Drum buh bum, hum duh dum, drum duh-duh dum bum  _ bum  _ bum bum. Boom buh duh dum bum  _ bum  _ bum bum, boom buh duh dum bum  _ bum  _ bum bum. Maybe if I’d ever pursued something outside of English, he’d actually notice me. Music, maybe, so I could be his backup in all those musicals he does. But no, just English, and here I am now, years later, and no closer to him than I am to finished one of many incomplete books. Just wasted potential that no one asked for, and no one wants to keep.

Patton starts with a whisper, slowly crescendoing as the music from my headphones picks up. “I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad,” he mumbles. Without my consent, my voice joins him, an undercurrent lifting his own up to carry over the tides of the rain, calling out into an empty night of clouds and rain and memories, “the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.” Soon enough, a tear spills over my eye, angry and sad and lost and alone but with Patton but still gone unwanted but unbidden and hopeless and missing but just a little bit found, and I’m yelling and Patton is yelling and we’re both drowning out the world in singing that neither of us asked for but both of us needed, “I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take, when people run in circles it’s a very very,” and our voices are screaming and my throat is running ragged and tears are streaming down my cheeks and I want to stop but I can’t but I don’t mind as we carry on pitying the “mad world, mad world.”

The song’s piano taps out, drifting into silence and allowing the ringing of our voices to fill the car, a feeling that neither of us wants to break as the rain beats louder, louder, louder, and I’m in a car with a stranger dumping all of my feelings for no reason but it doesn’t matter because we both did and I might not know his life but that’s okay because maybe I don’t know my own.

“Sorry,” we both mumble, before rushing to say, “no, don’t be sorry, really, I just, stop copying me!”

“Why don’t, um, why don’t you tell me more about Russ?” Patton asks, gripping his hands on the wheel and not looking at me. I nod once, twice, before starting far beyond elementary school.

“It wasn’t the complete truth when I said that he never noticed me,” I breathe out, wiping a tear stain from my cheek with the sleeve of my hoodie, which only serves to make it more wet as I realize too late how drenched the jacket still is. “We both did marching band in high school, him in the saxophones and me in color guard, so we got to see each other a little more there. Not too much, since the winds were separated from the guard were separated from percussion a lot, but still. I didn’t get made fun of too much for being a guy in the color guard, but I was definitely the only one. Anyway, he messages me one night for relationship advice, asking if it was weird to always be thinking about the same person he liked all the time—a girl, mind you. I replied something like ‘that isn’t weird, that’s how it is for me sometimes,’ which was the  _ wrong  _ thing to say, let me tell you.” I still have that conversation on my phone, actually. I look back at it sometimes when I’m feeling particularly masochistic. “Usually those conversations go away after opening them—it was on snapchat, by the way—but he’s one of those people that saves everything in the chat. Anyway, he moves over to text messages, which are, y’know, more permanent, and he’s like ‘wait who do you like?’ So of course I stall because it’s not like I can  _ tell  _ him, but I’m weak so eventually he gets it out of me and by some miracle he asked if I wanted to be his boyfriend.” I sniffle a little, remembering how happy I was for that one moment. Everything seemed right, we were finally together, I had finally gotten my happy ending. “Not a lot changed after that conversation, we just had an empty title full of empty promises. We’d walk back from the football field after practices together and hold hands and I was actually  _ happy  _ for once, but then school starts, so football games start, so the marching band goes to play at halftime, and as someone in guard, I had to do basic eyeliner eyeshadow stuff to match the uniform, right? So I go in the bathroom before one game, and Russ is in there, and I wave hi with a big smile because I love to see him, and he asks to talk to me outside the bathroom, which everyone knows is a bad sign, so he takes me outside and he’s like ‘look I just don’t think that you want what you think you want’ and now he’s like ‘oh actually it’s not gonna work’ so my only thought is that I can’t start crying or else my makeup will run before this football game and that’s not the end of it because then he goes ‘also I got tickets to this concert for my birthday do you wanna go’ and obviously I say yes because I’m weak and have no willpower and then my pathetic self goes ‘can we still be friends’ and he’s like ‘of course’ but then he leaves without a hug or a reason or anything and he still thinks it’s normal what our so called friendship is but every night I cry myself to sleep because I had the one thing I wanted most but I had to go and fuck it up.” I let out a shuddering gasp, my hands shaking and the car suddenly silent. The rain rushes down from the sky, pouring out everything as it beats against the car of the roof. I wish I could beat it back.

“Hey, Angel, buddy, look at me,” Patton says. In spurts, I take in my surroundings, grounding myself in the present again. The car isn’t moving, the moon is peeking nervously over a veil of clouds, the rain is never ending, Patton is here, and Patton is real. “It’s gonna be okay, buddy. I’ll go beat up that stupid Russ kid if you want.” Stupid again. Stupid stupid stuuupiiiid stew pit.

I give a vehement head shake,  _ no _ , knowing without reaching up that my cheeks are a burning shade of red. What kind of  _ loser  _ can’t keep his stupid emotions in check enough to not give his entire stupid backstory to a complete stupid stranger? Stupid me, that’s who. This guy probably doesn’t even care about me, he’s just the unlucky uber driver that got stuck driving me around the whole city just because I’m an indecisive, whiny little snot.

“Well, it’s not exactly as good as me punching that kid in the face,” Patton begins, “but I could tell you how I’m not perfect either. Just today, in fact, I told you that Logan asked me to leave, but it was less of a friendly agreement than him yelling at me for interrupting his work with cookies I made.” He laughs a little, tapping the steering wheel with his palm. “I think he was so preoccupied, he didn’t notice that I wrote ‘good job’ all over them in different languages.” I glance over at Patton, still sniffling heavily, but grateful for the distraction. This random person, who didn’t even know me before a couple hours ago, is baring his soul and personal life just for my own comfort and security. “One time, he had this really big project to finish that he was talking about at the coffee place, and he showed it to me and was talking about how nervous he was, so the next day I brought him cookies baked with hazelnut. I don’t think he’s ever smiled as big as he did when he took one and told me about how well the presentation went.” Patton bites his lip and looks back at me, and seeing that I’ve finally calmed down enough to make intelligible conversation, invites me to share some happier thoughts to pass the time.

“One time, he took me to this roller coaster park, and his first demand upon hearing that I’d never been before was to take me on the biggest, fastest coaster,” I start, letting the story warp me away from this car, from the rain, from everything now that seems to be getting worse. “I wasn’t very nervous or anything, but he must have mistaken my discomfort with so many people for being scared of heights, so he leans over and tells me to count how long it took the car to get to the top while we watched in line. Then, when we boarded, he said to count to the same number but slower this time, so that by the time I reached it, we were already at the top, so I wouldn’t have to worry about how much longer it would take to speed up.” That was a really fun day, actually. Maybe worth a few more tales for Patton before I tell him where I should really be tonight. “At one point, he could tell all the crowds of loud people were getting to me, so he takes me over to the games and wins me a giant stuffed elephant, one of the good soft ones, not the kind that’s really stiff and cheap.” That elephant is still on my bed, given as a prize when I couldn’t beat the game myself. “I know it’s really cheesy and lame, but I actually did have a lot of fun just being his friend that day. He still thinks everything is cool between us, and talks a bunch about his latest crushes, like he doesn’t know how much it hurts. I don’t think he realizes that every word out of his mouth is a dagger to my heart.”

“Aw, kiddo,” Patton sighs, at a loss for any better words of consolation. “Look, I know you said to just get you away from that house, but are you sure there’s nowhere you need to be tonight? With today being so special as it is—”

“I’m sure,” I cut in. Even if he’s just trying to help, I don’t need him to be worried for me. I’m perfectly fine as I am. “I mean, if you need to be home tonight, you can just drop me off anywhere and I’ll walk back or something, or find another uber person. I won’t rate you down or anything.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, Angel,” Patton says. “I don’t care about my driver ratings, I just need to make sure you get somewhere safe tonight. You really can’t be certain of anyone’s trustworthiness out there on a night like tonight. In the pouring rain, any trace of you might vanish with the water.” Vanish. Vaaaaaanissssh. Vaaaaain. Vaaanityyyyyy. Vaaapid. Vaaague. Veeeengennnnce. V. V. V. V. Vvvvvvv.

“I won’t vanish,” I mutter, turning to look out the window. The rain hasn’t let up at all. Maybe if I stand outside in it without moving, I’ll melt and drown and wash away into the sewers and live on as water that no one has to bother with and I won’t have to see him anymore and everything will be the way it’s supposed to be without a glitch in the system like me screwing everything up.

“I can’t be certain of that until I see you inside of a house safely with someone I know you trust, even if it’s that Russ loser,” Patton insists. I want to argue that Russ isn’t a loser, that he’s amazing and gorgeous and all of that, but if that’s true, why can’t I tell him as much? Oh, right, because I’m stupid. How do I keep forgetting that?

“Okay, just, just turn right up here,” I say, pointing to an upcoming light. Another car waits to turn left, the first we’ve seen since stopping for coffee. I’d almost forgotten this wasn’t just a special world of a car, Patton, and me, sealed off from everyone else who could pop our bubble of solitude.

Patton complies, following each of my directions as I lead him around the city, back to where this whole mess started. Too quickly, but also not soon enough, we’re back at the house of bright lights and sound and people and partying, but it isn’t the same house, either. The harsh yellow lights are all out except for one, glowing a soft golden in the night and illuminating the raindrops, seeming to freeze them in the air. The sound is gone, the party and people have cleared out, just the one window framing the door, inviting me back in. The light is splintered through as the door opens a little, allowing someone to slip outside. A boy, dressed in red and white, his hair shot through with purple, and even from here, I can almost see the warm light reflecting in his brown eyes.

“The peacock?” Patton asks.

“The peacock.”

The peacock spreads his arms, stepping further out of the door in a show of peace, an unmet embrace.

“If you don’t want to stay here,” Patton begins, but I shake my head, sliding my headphones around my neck and pulling my beanie lower over my ears. With no small amount of awkwardness, I give Patton a one-armed hug before pulling the door handle twice and stepping into the torrential downpour outside. He rolls down the window and leans out with a wave as I back up to the sidewalk, my phone already out to pay him.

“It’s on the house,” he calls, tapping away on his own screen. I don’t know how he does it, but my phone shows the ride having been paid for. Huh. “And Angel?”

“Yeah?” I say, halting on my way to the door.

“Merry Christmas!”

“It’s Virgil,” I correct with a smile and wave. “Merry Christmas. I hope the thing with Logan solves itself.”

“Virgil. I like that. You too, with that Russ peacock guy.”

“Roman,” I sigh, looking back at the offending figure at the door, his arms still open wide.

“Virgil,” Roman murmurs at the door, wrapping me up tightly. “I thought you’d been kidnapped or something, I sent everyone home and was about to send out a search party, you weren’t answering your texts or calls or anything—”

“I blocked you,” I admit, showing him as much on my phone. “Sorry.”

“I don’t care,” Roman replies, hugging me closer and pulling me inside, out of the rain. I turn back for one last glance as Patton drives away, and I don’t think I have to imagine the smile on his face. As the door clicks shut, I remember.

I forgot my coffee cup in the backseat.


End file.
